Deuteronomy 25:4

Summary

The verse contains a prohibition against muzzling an ox while it performs the action of threshing. The Hebrew uses a compact grammatical construction combining a preposition, an infinitive, and a pronominal suffix to express "during its threshing."

Key words

• lo' ("not", H3808) — negation particle that combines with the following imperfect verb to form a prohibitive command.
• tachSom ("you will muzzle", H2629) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular; the imperfect form here functions as a direct prohibition ("you shall not muzzle").
• shor ("an ox", H7794) — masculine singular noun, the direct object of the prohibited action.
• beDish ("threshes", H1758) — qal infinitive, preceded by the preposition be ("when", H9003), forming a temporal clause "when threshing" or "in the threshing."
• o ("his/its", H9043) — pronominal suffix attached to the infinitive, specifying that the threshing belongs to the ox itself (i.e., "its threshing").

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built around a single finite verb, tachSom ("you will muzzle", H2629), negated by lo' (H3808) at the very start of the clause. This negation-plus-imperfect construction is a standard way in Biblical Hebrew to issue a prohibition, equivalent to "you shall not muzzle." The object of this verb is shor ("an ox", H7794), stated simply without article or further modification.

The temporal circumstance under which the prohibition applies is expressed not with a separate clause containing a finite verb, but through an infinitive construction: the preposition be ("when", H9003) attaches to the infinitive diSh ("threshes", H1758), and a pronominal suffix o ("its", H9043) is attached to that infinitive, yielding beDishvo, literally "in its threshing." This is a compact way of saying "when it (the ox) is threshing" without needing a separate subject-verb clause. The suffix ties the threshing action directly back to the ox mentioned earlier in the sentence, making explicit that the ox is the one performing the threshing.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the temporal infinitive clause with a present participle, ἀλοῶντα ("threshing"), directly modifying βοῦν ("ox"), producing "an ox threshing" rather than the Hebrew's prepositional-infinitive construction "in its threshing."

The Vulgate expands the verse considerably: non ligabis os bovis terentis in area fruges tuas ("you shall not bind the mouth of the ox threshing your grain on the threshing floor"). The phrase "in area" ("on the threshing floor") and "fruges tuas" ("your grain") are additions not present in the Hebrew text, which contains only the infinitive diSh ("threshes", H1758) with its suffix, without specifying a location or the grain's owner.